Make a Stop Motion Video to Illustrate Mitosis in Science Class

Mitosis is an important lesson in cell biology that middle and high school students learn about across the country. Mitosis is a part of the cell cycle where chromosomes are separated into two new daughter cells after replication. Understanding this process is an important foundation for discussing growth, reproduction, and genetics in biology. When a student sees the phases of mitosis for the first time, it can be tricky to remember and internalize each step name and the process it entails (especially because the step names all sound similar!).

A visual representation of what happens at each step in mitosis is a great method for helping students process the information, and an even better way is to allow students to create a visual themselves. For lessons like this, which include a step by step process, stop motion videos are a very helpful and easy way to compile information and look back on it later to study! Here's an example of what a stop motion video could look like.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to make a simple and fast stop motion video featuring the steps of mitosis. There are four steps you can follow to create a stop motion video of your own.

Create your content

Upload your photos to Kapwing’s Video Montage Maker

Edit the image placement and speed

Publish and share!

1) Create your content

In order to create a stop motion, you need to find images to make up your video. You can draw your own pictures on paper, use an app to draw them, or find pictures that already exist online. Whatever you choose, make sure you spend time creating and organizing your photos for the stop motion. I decided to hand draw the phases of mitosis for my video, here are some examples of my drawings:

2) Upload your photos to Kapwing’s Video Montage Maker

The Video Montage Maker is perfect when you want to create a stop motion from a series of photos. After clicking the “Get Started” button you can choose to upload photos from your computer or through an image URL. You can upload as many photos as you want!

3) Edit the image placement and speed

Once your content is uploaded, you can play around with the speed of the video as well as the order in which you want the pictures to appear. You can see how your video looks with these changes by watching a preview of it on the top left of the screen.

4) Publish and share!

After you’re satisfied with your video, click the create button in the bottom left corner to publish it! From there you have the option to download, edit, or open in Studio to make further changes.

You can also use Kapwing to make a stop motion using a video instead of images with the Stop Motion tool! Have fun, get creative, and be sure to tag @kapwingapp with your creations!

This article is part of a series featuring educational tutorials and lesson plan inspirations for K-12 classrooms! Want to see more? Check out the Kapwing Education Page!